Since then, he had seen his father every day. For about a month, although it was hard to gauge the time, the family of three lived in the hospital room, spending almost all their time together. Miss Angie was there too—since his father's hands were too large to easily change a diaper—but she seemed to have the ability to appear only when necessary. Bill acknowledged that she was a professional, but she was a bit cold when his father was around.
After that period, the family moved to more spacious apartments, still within the hospital, but now instead of one large room, there were walls more suitable for living together. Bill had never seen anything like it in a hospital before; it was an apartment with two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, and a combined kitchen-dining area. The room where his mother stayed was still filled with the same cartoon-like scientific equipment and was not much smaller than the original room, which was good, as now there were two enormous beds occupying significant space.
During this time, he thought he had overcome his fear of giants. It was one thing to see his two and a half meter-tall mother lying in bed or weakly strolling around, but entirely another to see his father, who Bill guessed was about three meters tall and moved as if it was no big deal. At first, it seemed so unnatural that Bill involuntarily froze in place.
The best way to describe it was that when he saw his father move, he felt a kind of fear. His expectations were so far from reality that he had to calm himself down to avoid panicking. Sometimes it was hard for him to breathe, at other times, just to think clearly.
This dreadful feeling came and went for almost a whole year. Bill was grateful that he was a baby, because if he wasn't, he would have been sent to a psychiatric hospital. The main reason was that every time he managed to cope with something—which took more time than he could be proud of—a new problem arose.
For example, his father was perfectly proportioned. He had only seen this large man in shorts, and there were no visible flaws. All his muscles were well-defined, and there were no swellings on his legs. This, on one hand, amazed Bill, and on the other hand, made him wonder if he would grow as big himself.
In other respects, life as a baby turned out to be not as bad as he had expected in those first days. He simply lived day by day. He never really got bored, and when boredom did set in, he would just meditate.
Meditation became unexpectedly easy. In his past life, Bill had practiced meditation and yoga in his old age but never experienced the so-called moment of "zen." Then, after his wife's death, meditation helped him clear his mind and reflect on events, but now Bill felt what he believed was "zen." It was as if ideas came to him on their own, and moreover, he could "sense" when this was happening. He wouldn't say it was something exhilarating, but it was an intriguing feeling and aided him in better understanding his rebirth.
During this time, there wasn't a single situation where he could surprise his godmother or father with his "amazing" cognitive abilities. People generally viewed infants as infants. So when he was fed, he simply ate. When he was dressed, he just raised his arms.
As for "remarkable" achievements, his biggest success was being potty trained by his first birthday, and by his second birthday, he could clean himself afterward.
Although there was nothing particularly humiliating about having a nanny wipe him, considering his age, it was a skill he wanted to master as soon as possible. Given his child-sized hands and fingers, his coordination was terrible, and even the simple task of folding toilet paper took him several months. Then it took several more months to learn to wipe in the right direction without random sideways movements.
But now, being just over three years old, these challenges were behind him. Despite all his achievements, one of the areas he lagged in was speech. After all, Bill was not the pure mind of a newborn. He was learning a second language.
Learning this language turned out to be easier than he thought, but still, if he wasn't addressed directly, he continued to think in English. This gap in perception made him realize that he spoke like a child with a speech impediment.
Thinking about his speech as he entered the classroom, Bill just shrugged and thought, "Well, it could be worse."
Hearing his response, Miss Angie smiled and said, "Glad to hear that, little William. Now come over and hand out these sheets."
Understanding only half of what was said, Bill guessed from her body language what he was supposed to do and approached the table, taking the colorful sheets of paper.
Bill: "Hmm?"